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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 2018
Army Corps permit delays impact
new Seaside campus project
Schools wanted
permits by July
By R.J. MARX and
BRENNA VISSER
The Daily Astorian
Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
Jars of medicinal and recreational marijuana.
Gearhart to send pot
tax measure to voters
City’s tax higher
than others
By R.J. MARX
The Daily Astorian
GEARHART — One more
measure will find its way to
local voters this November.
Gearhart will decide whether
to adopt a 3 percent local sales
tax on marijuana. The city’s
first dispensary, Sweet Relief,
opened in July on U.S. High-
way 101.
Gearhart was among a few
cities to vote in a tax prior to the
legalization of recreational can-
nabis. In 2014, shortly before
the state’s voters approved Mea-
sure 91, the city passed an ordi-
nance requiring a 10 percent tax
on the sale of recreational mar-
ijuana and a 5 percent tax for
a medical marijuana registry
cardholder.
After legalization, the state
established a 17 percent tax
on marijuana and limited local
taxes to 3 percent. Cities may
not tax medical marijuana sales.
With a 10 percent tax already
in place, Gearhart city council-
ors had the option of defending
the tax in court or asking voters
to approve a 3 percent tax.
Sweet Relief co-owner
Oscar Nelson asked the City
Council to put the local tax
in line with most other cities,
including Astoria, Seaside and
Cannon Beach.
“The Legislature said we
can’t have more than 3 per-
cent,” City Attorney Peter Watts
said. “We have 10 percent. If we
impose our 10 percent tax and it
was challenged, would we win?
I can’t tell you.”
Watts said a legal challenge
would likely be decided by the
Oregon Court of Appeals or
Oregon Supreme Court.
At a special meeting on
Tuesday, City Councilors Dan
Jesse, Reita Fackerell and Kerry
Smith opted to refer the 3 per-
cent tax to voters. Mayor Matt
Brown was absent.
If the November ballot mea-
sure fails, the city would need to
decide whether to collect the 10
percent tax.
wetland and more than 2,000
linear feet of stream considered
essential fish habitat.
The school district had pro-
posed a combination of stream
enhancement, wetland and
swale creation to meet regula-
tory concerns.
A project timeline presented
to the school board in June
anticipated permit approvals
from the Army Corps and the
state by July 18.
The Department of State
Lands signed off on the permit
application July 26.
The Army Corps’ prelimi-
nary review, delivered in April,
indicated the project would
adversely affect essential fish
habitat.
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A topographical map illustrating waterways potentially
impacted by development of the new campus.
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SEASIDE — The U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers
has found that the $99.7 mil-
lion project to relocate Sea-
side schools out of the tsunami
inundation zone fails to offset
impacts to neighboring streams
with essential fish habitat.
School district officials
hope the Army Corps accepts
a plan to provide an environ-
mental easement on property
behind the district bus barn on
U.S. Highway 101 instead of
mitigation at the new campus
off Spruce Drive.
“We don’t have enough
room on our project site to do
stream mitigation, so we had
offered more wetlands to com-
pensate for that,” Jim Henry,
the project manager, said. “So
we have had to look off-site for
a solution.”
According to the school dis-
trict’s joint application to the
Army Corps and the Depart-
ment of State Lands, the proj-
ect will result in the permanent
placement of almost 4,800
cubic yards of soil, concrete
and stone within 0.16 acre of
Jeffrey Henon, a spokes-
man for the Army Corps, said
the agency is actively review-
ing the permit application to
determine the type and amount
of “compensatory mitigation
necessary” to offset environ-
mental losses.
Henry said the permit delay
has the school district’s con-
struction team “scrambling on
a lot of fronts.”
The delay has stalled con-
struction of an access road
from Heights Elementary
School to the new campus
site, Henry said. “Ideally, we’d
be working from the bottom
up,” he said. “We have to go
through the back door another
month than we wanted.”
Henry said crews will con-
tinue to access the site via
Beerman Creek Road and
Mainline logging road until the
Army Corps signs off on the
permit application.
“Once we have convinced
the Corps of Engineers we
have appropriate mitigation,
the next day we’ll be impact-
ing the areas we plan to impact
on the mitigation plan,” Henry
said. “There have been opti-
mistic trends the past week,
but we haven’t received final
approval. We’re at the point
where we think we’re really
close.”
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